Despite horrendous reviews across the board for this game, I actually enjoy it. It's a fun game to play and the humour is a breath of fresh air from the games that try to censor themselves in fear of being given an AO rating or bad press. I'm not going to talk about why I enjoy the game though, I'm going to talk about where this game is seriously lacking, a subject that hasn't really been mentioned. They were all focusing on the single player campaign and even with the "second opinions" nobody talked about it. The subject here, is the multiplayer.

The multiplayer in DNF is a standard FPS, run around and kill people foray, with CTF and King of the Hill variants as well. They allow for the creator of the matches to add "mutators" to the games, which will vary the weaponry or can add unlimited ammo clips so you never have to reload. Initially, everyone loved unlimited ammo games because they were easy to win. You grabbed a pipe bomb or a rocket launcher and you had the game in the bag since you never ran out of ammo or pipe bombs. However, I'm glad to say that there has been a very significant decrease in unlimited ammo games since launch.

The maps are fairly small, but not to the point where you're constantly running into someone. If people want to camp, they can camp, but they'll likely get murdered by someone's pipe bomb. Do I wish there were more maps? Sure, but even if there were, it wouldn't solve the huge issue with the multiplayer. By far the biggest issue with the multiplayer is the tendency to lose your connection to the game itself. You're probably more likely to lose your connection to the game than to actually see it through to the end unless you're the one hosting the game. This is incredibly frustrating, especially if you're winning, because if you rejoin the game, you're back to a score of 0. The only positive to this is that any experience you gained or challenges you completed by the time you lost your connection is kept, so it's not as if what you just did was for nothing.

The challenges and the unlockables are honestly the only thing that has kept me playing the broken multiplayer in DNF. There is a massive array of things to unlock for your "digs" which is sort of like your apartment in Bioshock 2 multiplayer in that you can walk around it, but you don't use it to customize yourself, instead it's a huge penthouse that shows off what you've unlocked through multiplayer. There's also the "change room" which is pretty self-explanatory, it's where you change your appearance. To unlock things for your penthouse, you have to level up in multiplayer by getting kills, winning matches, and completing challenges. The only way for you to unlock additional attire options is by completing certain challenges.

Do the addition of challenges and this penthouse full of unlockables make up for the broken mechanics of the multiplayer? Absolutely not. It's a broken system and it's incredibly frustrating to continue playing when you know you're likely going to suddenly get booted from the game by the game itself. Do the unlockables and challenges serve as a bit of a distraction from these problems? Yes, because through all the frustration you might have with connection issues, leveling up means that you've got at least another item kicking around your penthouse. Some you can interact with like a pool table, and others you can't, like the "retro paintings" which are screenshots from older Duke Nukem games, or the Pigcop rug you can unroll right by the fireplace.

To my knowledge, there are 42 levels in the multiplayer, and unlockables for each of those levels. I'm sitting somewhere around 22 or 23 right now but like with Bioshock 2, I just can't be bothered to continue to play any more of the multiplayer. It's fun for a while, if it works it's alright, the unlockables give you something to aim for, but with the core of the multiplayer suffering from an issue this blatant and horrible, it's a huge deterrent.

I downloaded the demo today while I was making myself some food and I couldn't wait to try it out. Now, normally I'm not one for demos, especially if I know I'm going to get the game. Hell, I've actually never downloaded and played a demo, unless you count the Halo: Reach beta. I figure what's the point of playing the demo if you're getting the game, it kind of ruins the surprise of what's in store for you when you play it. Duke Nukem Forever is a little different though. This game was announced more than 10 years ago, and it was finally taken over by Gearbox, the same awesome developers that brought us Borderlands. I know how over-the-top Duke is, and I know how hilarious the content from Borderlands is, so instead of being forced to wait until the 14th to get some more ridiculous gameplay, I figured I would check out the demo since I was given access to it through my pre-order and all.

I have to say, while the demo is only a small chunk of the game and might only entertain you for 20 minutes or so, it's still highly entertaining. The demo starts off in what I think is the start of the actual game. You're standing in front of a urinal relieving yourself and then you have to go fight that giant alien on the football field, the one you see in the trailers. You don't get to shoot anything or punch anything until you go up to the football field, but that doesn't mean you can't have a pile of fun before that. I ran through the locker room you start in, seeing what I could interact with. You can turn on the sinks, dispense liquid soap, turn on the showers, use the urinals and toilets, and perhaps the best of all, you can actually pick up feces from in the toilet.

Some of you are probably sitting there giving the screen a disgusted look right now, but in all fairness, most of what makes that fact so awesome is the kind of stuff Duke says when he picks it up. I will now share a couple of these classy one-liners with you. "A turd in the hand is worth two in the bush." "What the hell!? No! Nooo! C'mon, this is disgusting!" "What kind of sick motherfucker picks up wet feces?" "Now what? Shit finger painting?" and perhaps the most understandable line of all, "Why am I doing this?"

It's these kinds of lines that makes Duke Nukem so awesome. There's plenty of swearing, the common enemies I saw were basically all boars with guns that could walk upright, and instead of a health bar, you have an "ego" bar. While I was playing through this demo, a thought that kept running through my mind was that you could tell it was the guys from Borderlands that made this game, and it works perfectly. Will the controls take some getting used to? Yes, mainly thanks to the fact that you have to push down on the right analog stick to crouch, but that's not a big deal. I've heard a couple complaints about the graphics, but honestly, I didn't have a problem with any of the graphics. I'm also of the mindset of content over visuals though, so while some people might not enjoy the game because it doesn't look realistic, the premise is that you're killing pig-aliens because they stole the hot women from your planet! What part of that is realistic?

For me, while I'm not expecting this to be the kind of game that hooks me like Fallout 3, Borderlands, or Halo 3 did, this is still going to be an enjoyable game to play. We'll have to wait and see what the multiplayer is like, but I would imagine it's going to be one big mess of guns and explosions like most FPS multiplayer modes. Only this one will have women you spank. Advantage: Duke